Based on "The Screwfly Solution", by Alice Sheldon writing as James  Tiptree Jr. That was a very, very dark story, if you're familiar with  it. This is... slightly less dark, but that's not saying much.  (If you're not familiar with it, it's okay, this story explains the  background you need to know.)

Roy is very excited, running, practically ( Read more... )

I returned to the apartment building where Daro and Anzali and I had lived before we went down to the sea. It had not changed in the way buildings change-- its paint was the same color, it seemed no more or less weatherbeaten than before. The railing on the 3rd floor balcony still sagged. But it had changed in the way homes change, because it wasn' ( Read more... )

Five friends drove up the mountain into the forest, where the vacation cabin waited for them. It was their senior year of college, so it wouldn’t be long before they’d be graduating and going their separate ways, and who knew when they’d all be able to hang out together again? So they’d decided that this year, instead of going on spring break ( Read more... )

The group returned to find that Harrison had wandered back to the hot tub as soon as it was clear that no one was being killed except maybe a large number of innocent bottles of beer, and was sitting outside the hot tub but right by Y’lehna, who was in the hot tub eating chips.

Nandini said, severely, “Y’lehna! Ashlee told you not to do that!”

“ ( Read more... )

Marc Snowfrolic wanted biscuits.

It was really odd for him to want biscuits at a time like this. Also, very inconvenient, because he was a wolf, and couldn’t bake his own biscuits like he could have if this had been last Thursday. Not that he actually knew how to bake biscuits, but on Thursday he could have read a recipe book, and used his bipedal ( Read more... )

When their guard patrol passed the building where the psychics sat or laid on their mats, deep in their meditations, Soffrees snorted. “Look at that,” he said, pointing a thumb behind him at the windows of the battery. “We go out on the front lines and risk our lives. They sit in an air-conditioned room, or they nap in it, and they get served their ( Read more... )

Surely you have heard a similar tale before, almost but not entirely like this one, of the queen who sought the perfect wife for her son, the crown prince.

The queen had ruled the land alone since the death of her husband. She was praised for her wisdom and her benevolence toward her people. But she was no longer young, and it was time to make sure ( Read more... )

With rings of light surrounding me, with rings of darkness covering me, I dance. Perfectly and long I dance the firedance. There is no fire in my veins, there are no flames around my body, but I see nothing. Hear nothing but the throbbing of the music, feel nothing but my body and the hard ground under my feet, I dance.

Hands catch me, lead me away ( Read more... )

Her name is… she’s sure she can remember it, if she tries hard enough. It was something that started with a sound she can’t make any more, which lets out all the vowels, and r, and m and n, and s, so… something else. Was it Lisa? Maybe it was Lisa. Or could it have been Laura? It’s so hard to hold her memories in her head.

The people she’s living ( Read more... )

“Now. Why don’t you sit down and relax. You can have a drink if you want. Bottled water? Juice? Soda?”

The thin boy shook his head. “No,” he whispered.

“That’s fine. You can sit down wherever you like.” This was obviously not 100% accurate, as the therapist herself was sitting in one of the chairs, so Jason couldn’t have picked that seat if he’d ( Read more... )